The Poor Pay More in Taxes

Yes, the rich pay more in taxes (because they earn so much more) — but they don't usually pay more as a percentage of their incomes.

According to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, in nearly every state, low- and middle-income families pay a bigger share of their income in state and local taxes than wealthy families. Patricia Cohen wrote in her very detailed and comprehensive article at the New York Times: "When it comes to the taxes closest to home, the less you earn, the harder you’re hit."

According to the study, in 2015 the poorest fifth of Americans will pay on average 10.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes, the middle fifth will pay 9.4 percent and the top 1 percent will average 5.4 percent.

In Bill Gate's great State of Washington, the tax system is the most regressive — where the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers pay 16.8 percent of their income in taxes, while the top 1 percent pay just 2.4 percent.

A number of states, including Kansas, have made the situation worse in recent years by cutting income taxes, the only major state revenue source typically based on ability to pay. Income tax cuts thus tend to push more of the cost of paying for schools and other public services to the middle class and poor — exactly the opposite of what is needed.

Think Progress: "To pay for his failed experiment with trickle-down economics, Kansas Governor could raid the school budget."

The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch recently presented a policy wish-list at a press conference:

Obama had the White House and the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate for two years in 2009 and 2010, but they did NOTHING to reform the tax code or to shore up Social Security. Obamacare was two little, too late — when what we really needed was something similar to a "single-payer" healthcare system. A new study has put a price tag on how much more the United States pays in health care costs because it has chosen not to adopt a single-payer system: $375 billion annually.

I went to the attached link, and it showed a loose correlation between economic well being and living in a state which typically (or in the last election cycle - not clear which) votes for one party or the other.

That is interesting, but it doesn't answer the question as to which is the cause, and which is the effect, or even if a causal relationship exists.

For example, if you plot the number of murders in a community vs the number of MD's in a community, you see a strong correlation. The more doctors, the more murders.

In that case, there is no actual cause and effect relationship. Murders happen where there are lots of people, and Doctors congregate where there are lots of people. Even on a per capita basis, the correlation remains, as murders are predominantly an urban phenomenon, and MDs tend to disproportionally congregate in urban areas also.

Teasing out cause and effect from the data in the linked article would be rather difficult.

One of the problems is that the Republican party seems to be the uneasy abode of the social conservatives. And for many, this is the main concern which determines their political affiliation. In that regard, they attract a lot of Christians, who are (according to 1 Corinthians 1:27-28) the foolish, weak, and base things of this world. The idea is not that they are stupid, necessarily, but that they are the losers, misfits, and wannabes.

So where you have these people, regardless of policy, if the Bible is true, you will have social conservatives and low incomes.

While the Republican leadership views this constituency with a mixture of loathing and contempt, they recognize their importance. If the social conservatives all stay home, all of the red states would turn blue.

So getting back to the tax burden on the poor, it seems intuitive that if you are poor, you will pay a larger proportion of your income on (name the category) food, housing, education, health care, as that is what it means to be poor. Your entire income is consumed in meeting your expenses. You have no wealth (surplus) and no means to acquire wealth. -I was raised poor, I know how it works...

I suppose there is some income proportion paid in state and local taxes which represents basic equality. What I mean by that is, if the poor and the rich both pay these taxes in exact proportion to the benefits they receive, so they get the same value for a dollar spent. If taxation were based on that principle, the rich will obviously pay a smaller proportion of their income in state and local taxes.

For example (chosen for its relative simplicity) the property tax largely pays for elementary and secondary education. The poor, as a class, if they have as many children per capita as the rich, typically pay a good deal less for this, as their real estate is less valuable, but the cost of educating their children is the same or perhaps greater. So while the percent of income the poor pay in real estate taxes is higher than that of the rich, the value they receive per dollar spent is significantly higher. (Here we are omitting the societal benefits of an educated populace, and how the rich benefit from well educated wage-slaves, etc.)

My question is, to what extent should the tax burden on one economic group subsidize the provision of service to another?

Should (as an example) the monies paid for personal security and property security (police) be based on the value of property secured, or on the cost of providing that service? In the one case, the rich should pay much more, but in the other, significantly less.

I think it would be helpful to articulate what the desired state is.

To what extent should the rich subsidize the poor, and in what areas, and why?

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